Change and Transformation for American Colleges and Universities

If Another College is Doing It Already, Can I Still Call it #FutureHigherEd Innovation?

Today’s #FutureHigherEd post is by Mills College professor Dan Ryan, who teaches a course on how to use design thinking to improve higher education. Prof. Ryan asks whether an idea can be innovative if someone else is already doing it.

Mike Brown thinks this is the basis for creative instigation, the process of searching intentionally for ideas that can instigate your own creative activities as you sculpt, adapt, and reassemble them into solutions that are meaningful and relevant to your circumstances.

Do you think this is a missed opportunity for educational innovators? My experience is that ideas originating off-campus (or, shudder, from other industries) have a hard time competing with local ideas. Think N-I-H: Not Invented Here. Why is the N-I-H syndrome such a powerful force? How much better off would we be if we routinely built on the work of others?

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Welcome to Innovate.EDU, a site devoted to innovation in American Higher Education. Readers of my WWC blog will recognize the style and substance of this site. This is a site about innovation and change in colleges and universities.

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